Watch this movie only if you want to see another of your childhood movie icons bite the dust

“This is not 1986!” asserts the trigger-happy and theatrical (I-could-have-been-a-dancer, no?) side-villain with his gun aimed at John McClane. We cannot but agree. And while we are at it, add, this is not Die Hard either.

As Detective McClane thuds, crashes and whams from heights – both, literal and figurative – dodging bullets, bombs and crashing helicopters, hurtling from one action set piece to another, the only groans you might hear are from the audience. Especially, from those among us who rate the original Die Hard as one of the genre-defining action movies of the Eighties. The fifth instalment in the Die Hard series leaves you wondering whether the filmmakers (and Willis) got confused between John McLane and security guard David Dunn from M Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable. Gone is the vulnerable and irritable NYPD detective who limped over broken glass two decades ago and made us root for him for his sheer doggedness. In his place we have a cardboard action hero who is indestructible and one-dimensional.

If in the fourth part (Live Free Or Die Hard) we had John mending fences with his estranged daughter Lucy, this time around his relationship with son Jack (Jai Courtney) in focus. Jack is in Russian prison and his prospects are not bright. John arrives in Moscow to save his son. However, John is unaware that Jack is a CIA agent and ends up botching-up Jack’s undercover mission to rescue political prisoner Komarov (Sebastian Koch). With the Russian vice-president bent on killing Komarov, the father-son duo decides to execute the mission despite their differences. Amidst chases, blasts and gunfire, the two bond over “Now, let’s kill some motherf***ers!”, “I got your back” and similar inanities.

The sound effects are deafening, the writing cringe-worthy, the acting forced and the action repetitive. If ever the Die Hard series needed another nail in its coffin, this installment finishes the job with finality.

We have seen Arnold Schwarzenegger (The Last Stand) and Sylvestor Stallone (A Bullet To The Head) attempting blast-from-the-past action movie resurrections in recent months. Bruce Willis joins his Planet Hollywood partners and suffers a similar fate. The studio approved formula of wham-bam action mixed with self-deprecatory lines is doing a huge disservice, not just to the action gods of the eighties but also the nostalgic memories that we movie lovers have cherished for decades.

Watch this movie only if you want to see another of your childhood movie icons bite the dust.